War of useless statements leaves issue of expensive petrol unresolved

Romanian political leaders are going public with tough statements on the policy of making fuel prices more expensive pursued by players in the oil sector, but what their statements have in common is the lack of solutions.

"Unfortunately, the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange do not listen to Boc. The quote of oil products rises, the dollar rises against the RON, the VAT rises, and the excise rises. The real problem is not that fuels become more expensive, but that the resulting price is not bearable for consumers. As long as China consumes, prices will rise and the European Commission will never raise the issue of the wage in Romania being lower than in Germany, but that the fuel price is almost the same. This is not the problem of oil companies," says Andrei Chirilescu, a specialist in the oil industry, former deputy general manager of Lukoil.
In the last two years of crisis, the RON-denominated price of petrol and of diesel oil rose by 72% and 52% respectively, in an interval during which Romanians have been affected by redundancies, salary cuts and tax hikes. Moreover, fuel demand has fallen, with oil companies compensating for the volumes lost through price increases, always linking them to the international quotations of oil products.
Premier Emil Boc in turn said early this week he was considering taxes for oil companies as a way to "call to account those that unjustifiably raise prices in a market economy."